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Courses

HIST-101 - Making History

How do historians understand and interpret the past? What tools do historians use to uncover the past? What does it mean to think historically? History is both an art and a science, and in this course, we will learn the methods, practices, and tools used to create historical knowledge. You will learn how to read texts with an eye toward their argument, how to ask historical questions, how to conduct historical research, and how to write a historical narrative. At the discretion of the instructor, the class may use examples from a particular historical era to ground course concepts in a specific historical tradition.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-102 - Themes in US History

This introductory-level course will examine the social, cultural, political, technological and/or economic development of modern America as it is revealed through a particular historical topic or theme. The theme or topic of the course is chosen by the instructor, announced in the subtitle, and developed in the syllabus.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-103 - The City in History

This course offers an introduction to the study of history by exploring the history of a particular city. Cities are complicated places, where many peoples, cultures, and histories overlap and interact. Their histories are also shaped by many forces, such as economic, cultural, demographic, social, and sexual, operating at levels from local to national to global. Studying a city offers a window into the history of a local place as well as a nation. The choice of the city is left up to the individual professor. Cities under study in the past have included Rochester, Las Vegas, and Paris.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-125 - Public History and Public Debate

In late 1994, the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay —the airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb detonated in combat on Hiroshima, Japan—arrived at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The museum’s staff faced important questions: would they celebrate the Enola Gay as the weapon that ended the Pacific War? Would they exhibit it as a technological artifact that marked the dawn of nuclear warfare? Would they remind museum visitors that its potent cargo ended the lives of tens of thousands of people? These were difficult professional questions for public historians; they were deeply ethical questions too. Much of the past that public historians interpret is the source of great debate in the present. Since the way history is remembered shapes public policy, community identity, and collective understanding, the ethical stakes for public history are high. This course will examine notable controversies in American public history and develop students’ critical perspectives on them. Students will generate answers to the questions: What are the ethics of doing public history? What happens when public historians remember, but the community wants to forget? When stakeholders (e.g., historic site, community, historians, sponsors) collide, whose stories and whose interests prevail? Who decides? How are those decisions made? Who is allowed to tell history? To whom or to what are public historians responsible?
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-150 - World History since 1500

This course will explore of how the contemporary global order in the 21st century has emerged from the historical events, processes and trends of the past 500-plus years. Since 1500, the world has changed dramatically, from several mostly—or entirely—separate and autonomous regions to a single interconnected system of people and societies. We will consider the political, social, economic and technological developments as well as the intercultural and transregional contacts and interactions that helped create these changes.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-160 - History of Modern East Asia

Understanding the history of East Asia is integral to understanding the complex world that we live in, and will help us to understand that no single nation can live in isolation. One cannot endeavor to understand limited national entities alone; rather one must understand the interactions between cultures and across borders that help to define the world. Japan, for example, cannot be adequately understood without reference to China, Korea, and one might argue, the wider world. Therefore, we will undertake in this course to examine the region of East Asia historically from about 1600 to the present, paying special attention to interactions between the cultures and people of the region.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-170 - Twentieth Century Europe

This course examines major themes and controversies in European history from 1900 to the present, placing particular emphasis on the early twentieth-century crisis of liberal democracy and the political alternatives proposed to parliamentary government: right-wing nationalism, communism, and fascism. Topics will include: the impact of World War I on European societies and politics; Popular Front movements in France and Spain; eugenics and the Nazi racial state; the Holocaust; occupation and resistance during World War II; decolonization; student rebellions in 1968; Cold War domestic politics; and the reshaping of post-communist and post-colonial Europe. Special attention will be placed racial politics and immigration, state surveillance regimes, and European debates over the Americanization and globalization of European cultures.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-180 - Information Revolution

The internet and cell phones seem to have revolutionized our society, changing how we learn about new things, relate to each other and understand ourselves. This course investigates the history of information and communication technologies to cast new light on these developments. We will ask how people formed political opinions, what ethical concerns new information and communication technologies raised, and how technologies changed the lives of the people using them. This course helps students understand the social, cultural, and ethical implications of “revolutionary” information and communication technologies.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-190 - American Women's and Gender History

This course surveys women’s history in the United States from the colonial period to present. The course moves chronologically and thematically, focusing on the diversity of women’s experiences across race, class, and geography as well as the construction of dominant gender norms. Topics include Native American, African American, and Euro-American women in colonial America; the Industrial Revolution and the ideology of domesticity, Women in the American West; women’s paid and unpaid work; sexuality and reproduction; women’s activism; and women’s experiences of immigration and family life.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-191 - The History of Families and Children in the U.S.

The family is at the center of contemporary political debates involving social policies, gender roles, citizenship, marriage, and the role of the state. Politicians and commentators frequently invoke a mythical American family, one that is conflict-free, independent, and unchanging. These idealized depictions mask a far more complicated and richer historical reality of the development of family structures in the U.S. This course will examine both the diverse experiences of actual families in the American past, including queer families, and changing ideologies about the family and childhood. Students will have the opportunity to write a history of their own family, or to complete an alternative research paper.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-199 - Survey of American Military History

This course is a survey of military history and will study the interaction between society and military institutions, technology and techniques, from 1637 to the present. Additionally, the course will examine the interrelationships of warfare, technology and society in American history. The course will focus on such questions as how changing "styles" of warfare, the composition of the military establishment (militias, citizen armies, paid professionals, mercenaries), and the transformations in military technology have impacted upon state and society. Conversely, it will also investigate how political and societal changes have influenced the nature of warfare in American history.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-201 - Histories of Globalization

Globalization is a human process, influenced by contemporary and historical issues that are routinely conceived of as affecting or pertaining to the world’s population in its entirety, such as human rights, humanitarianism, environmental degradation, trade, and military power. We use the world and its population as the unit of analysis with an emphasis is placed on issues that appear to be in tension with the role of the nation-state and nationality, and highlight world and global citizenship. We explore critiques of the conceptualization of globality and worldliness as a factor in determining social, cultural, and historical change.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-210 - Culture and Politics in Urban Africa

With a focus on African societies, we examine the diverse cultures of African peoples in the context of political and economic forces that have shaped their lives in the past and the present. Topics include European colonialism and its modern-day legacies, ethnic inequalities, economic vulnerability, labor migration, urbanism, and social unrest. We look at how art, music, oral traditions, and literatures have engaged critically with the forces of political change and neo-colonialism. We consider political activism, religious diversity, changing experiences and expectations of women and men, rebellion and revolution, impacts of and creative responses to globalization, and cultural transformations of African diasporas in the U.S and elsewhere.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-221 - Introduction to Public History

Public history is using the research-based methods and techniques of historians to conduct historical work in the public sphere. If you've gone to a museum, conducted an oral history, researched your old house, or learned from an interpreter at a park or historic site, you've seen public history in action. This course will introduce students to the wide variety of careers in public history, and will examine the challenges and opportunities that come with "doing" history in, with, and for the public.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-230 - American Deaf History

This course explores the history of the deaf community in the United States. It offers a broad survey of American deaf history from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. Major events in American deaf history will be considered, including the foundation of schools for the deaf, the birth of American Sign Language, the emergence of deaf culture, the challenge of oralism, the threat of eugenics, and the fight for civil rights.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-231 - Deaf People in Global Perspective

This course explores the history of the deaf community in global perspective from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. It takes a comparative approach, exploring the histories of deaf people from around the globe, including deaf lives in Central America, Europe, Africa, and East Asia. Special attention will be given to the major events in European deaf history, as Europe was the site for the first schools for the deaf in the history of the world, and the world's first documented deaf culture, in France, emerged there as well. The spread of deaf education, the rise of indigenous signed languages, the birth of deaf-hood, and the fight for human rights will all be placed in a global context.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-238 - History of Disability

This course will explore the meaning of disability in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The course provides a cultural over-view of disability and seeks to explore the social construction of disability, with special attention given to the cultural, intellectu-al, personal, and social histories of disability. Disability in history has been many (frequently contradictory) things: acquired at birth and acquired by war; a reason to promote eugenic policies or a reason to promote civil rights legislation; a medical diagnosis or a personal identity; visible in the body (as in the case of amputations) or invisible (as in the case of deafness); a source of family shame or a source of personal pride. How has the meaning and nature of disability changed over time? How can we understand the cultural meaning of the body in history? The course seeks to explore and explain these shifting meanings of disabil-ity within the context of Western history. Specific topics to be considered include freak shows, disabled veterans, prosthetic technologies, disability as culture, the history of eugenics, and political activism.
Lecture 2, Credits 3

HIST-240 - Civil War America

This class will examine American politics and society during the Civil War era. In addition to military affairs, students will focus on several broader themes, including the political, economic and social factors leading to the Civil War in the 1860s; the role of abolitionist, slave expansionist, and black freedom movements in the years before the Civil War; the development of emancipation policies during and after the war; and the reconstruction of the union following the war. Students will also examine the way subsequent generations of Americans remembered the Civil War in history books, memoirs, and museums.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-242 - The American Revolutionary Era

This course will examine the American Revolutionary era as a key moment in both US and global history. Focusing on the era between 1760 and 1800, the course will survey the key political, social, economic and cultural events in the founding and development of the United States as an independent nation. Key topics include debates over American independence, the development and meaning of civil society at the state and federal levels, debate over social issues such as slavery and women’s equality, American foreign policy and global views of the American Revolutionary project and the formation of both the U.S. Constitution and political parties at the close of the 18th century.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-245 - American Slavery and Freedom

This class will survey the history of slavery and freedom in the United States from the establishment of global slave systems in the colonial period through emancipation movements during the Civil War era. Students will examine key economic, political and social issues (from the development of slave labor systems to strategies of resistance among enslaved peoples) as well as the meaning of black freedom struggles during key eras (such as the American Revolutionary era and Civil War).
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-250 - Origins of U.S. Foreign Relations

This class analyzes the roots of U.S. foreign policy, beginning with the American Revolution and continuing through the Spanish-American War. It also examines the development of the United States from a small eighteenth-century experiment in democracy into a late nineteenth-century imperial power. Topics include foreign policy powers in the constitution, economic development, continental and overseas expansion, and Manifest Destiny.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-251 - Modern U.S. Foreign Relations

This course examines the late nineteenth-century emergence of the United States as an imperial power and its development into a twentieth-century superpower. Topics include U.S. politics and foreign policy, the influence of racial and cultural ideologies on policy, isolation and intervention, the cold war, and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-252 - The United States and Japan

This class examines the U.S.-Japanese relationship from the perspectives of diplomacy, economics, and culture. Fluctuating sharply during its 150 years, this relationship has featured gunboat diplomacy, racial conflict, war, and alliance. The course investigates U.S.-Japanese relations in the contexts of modernization, imperialism, World War II, the cold war, and the twenty-first century.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-255 - History of World War II

This course will cover the military, diplomatic, political, social, and cultural history of World War II. It will focus on the causes of the war, the battles that decided the war, the leaders (civilian and military) who made the key decisions, and how the war changed society. The purpose of the course is to acquaint students with the political, social, economic, military and cultural history of the Second World War and that conflict's impact upon our own era.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-260 - History of Premodern China

This course will examine critically the early history of China: the origins of China, the early mytho-historical dynasties, early imperial China, and finally the late imperial era, ending at roughly 1850. Students will be able to trace the relationship to the Chinese to various non-Chinese peoples, particularly the semi-nomadic peoples on the northern frontier. Students will also examine the way that Chin's long and complicated past has shaped its present, and how its relations to other peoples has shaped its modern relations to both its neighbors and the west.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-261 - History of Modern China

China occupies a rather large place in the consciousness of most Americas. It is the most populous country in the world, it has one of the biggest economies in the world and, in many ways, China has been seen to be in direct competition with America. Whatever the truth of these ideas, it is clear that China will play a major role on the world stage for the foreseeable future. This class will seek to analyze the historical circumstances surrounding the rise of modern China. What were the conditions that led to the establishment of, first, Nationalist China, followed by the People's Republic; why did the communist government enjoy such popular support; what were China's relations with the outside world; and finally, what is the state of China today? These are all questions that we will seek to answer in this course.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-265 - History of Modern Japan

This course will seek to examine critically the history and culture of Japan and will address many of the stereotypes and misunderstandings that are an inevitable part of Japanese studies. We will do this by examining a number of materials such as primary documents in translation, Japanese films, and art such as woodblock prints. In doing so, I will try to present as complete and balanced a picture of Japan's history and culture as possible. This will not only be useful in understanding Japan and its past, but will also help in understanding many of the important regional issues that are confronting us here in the modern world.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-266 - History of Premodern Japan

This class will introduce students to the history of Japan from the earliest times to the opening of the country in the mid nineteenth century. Through a variety of readings, discussions, and lectures, we'll tackle issues such as the origin of the Japanese people, early state formation, Japan in the larger East Asian context, and the rise of the warriors. We'll also examine the unique dual form of government that existed in Japan from the twelfth century, consisting of rule by the imperial court as well as by the warrior class in Japan, the well-known samurai. And finally, we'll look at several of the modern myths of Japanese history and try to address them in a balanced, historical manner.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-270 - History of Modern France

This course explores pivotal themes in French history from the French Revolution of 1789 to the present. Topics will include the French Revolution, Napoleon III's Second Empire, French imperialism, World War I and nationalism, World War II and the Vichy regime, collaboration and resistance, and the 1968 student rebellions. Special emphasis will be placed on the recurring tension between secularism and Catholicism in French society, the role of French republicanism in shaping historic and contemporary debates about citizenship, race, and immigration, and France's relationship with its former colonial possessions and the United States.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-275 - Screening the Trenches: the History of WWI Through Film

This course uses popular films to examine World War I as the global conflict that set the stage for the rise of communism, fascism, and subsequent wars in twentieth-century Europe. Students will gain an understanding of the major causes and outcomes of World War I while investigating how the war transformed class, gender, and racial politics in Europe. Special attention will be paid to the combat/trench experience, the home front/war front divide, the German occupation of Belgium and Northern France, “total war,” the politics of shell-shock and disability, and the legacies of grief, mourning, and commemoration. Because World War I so greatly divided its participants, little consensus about the war’s meaning emerged in its aftermath. Filmmakers have consequently used World War I as a “blank slate” on which to project political fantasies, condemn elements of their own societies, or imagine the future. Students will use secondary historical literature and original primary sources to analyze filmic representations of World War I and consider how filmmakers have deliberately misrepresented the past or constructed particular narratives about the war to serve their own ends. This course will therefore equip students to think critically about representations of the historical past in popular culture.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-280 - History of Modern Germany

This course covers major themes in German history from the formation of the German Empire in 1870 to the present. Topics include nation building and nationalism, industrialization and urbanization, imperialism at home and abroad, the first world war, the Weimar Republic, Nazi racism and the second world war, the divided Germany and the Cold War, and reunification and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The course may focus on specific questions such as gender, class, religion or race and ethnicity. This course leads you to explore how German history shaped the role of Germans and Germany in the world today as well as how it informs problems facing other regions and eras.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-290 - U.S. History Since 1945

This class examines U.S. history from WWII to present, with emphasis on political, social and cultural change. Focuses on the meanings and boundaries of American citizenship, as well as the role of the U.S. in the world. Topics include the Cold War and McCarthyism; the GI Bill and the building of a suburban middle class; consumer culture and its critics; The Civil Rights Movement; Great Society liberalism; The Vietnam War, the New Left and the New Right, and the counterculture; feminism, the Religious Right, and changes in gender roles, sexuality and family life; deindustrialization and economic restructuring; globalism and immigration policy; the War on Drugs and the growth of a penal state; the end of the Cold War and the New World Order; and the War on Terror.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-301 - Great Debates in US History

This course offers an analysis and interpretation of the main themes in the history of the United States over a broad period of time that extends to the modern era. We will look at how issues such as race, class, gender, and the environment have shaped American history, as well as debates over the multiple meanings of that history.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-302 - Special Topics in History

This upper-level course will focus on a specific theme or topic in history, chosen by the instructor, announced in the subtitle, and developed in the syllabus. The topics of this course will vary, but the course number will remain the same, so be sure not to repeat the same topic. Class 3, Credit 3 (annually)
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-310 - Global Slavery and Human Trafficking

This course examines historical and contemporary dimensions of global slavery and human trafficking. The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the world's largest forced migration between continents, but it was only one of many slave trades that shaped societies throughout the world. In order to understand the historical significance of global slave trades, we will compare it to other systems of slavery. In examining the historical significance and legacies of the slave trade, we will link different regional histories to the growth of market-based capitalist economies into the twentieth century. The course will also examine the changing meaning of the term ‘slavery’ and examine some modern forms of forced labor, bondage, and slavery that persist to this day in all sectors of the global economy. We will explore the rise of human trafficking, and global anti-trafficking programs and campaigns.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-321 - Special Topics in Public History

Public history is the practice of history for, and by, audiences outside the classroom. This course will focus on a specific theme or topic in public history, chosen by the instructor, announced in the subtitle, and developed in the syllabus. The topics of this course will vary, but the course number will remain the same, so be sure not to repeat the same topic.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-322 - Monuments and Memory

Monuments are physical objects that were constructed to help us remember the past, but a deeper analysis reveals that the relationship between monuments and the memories they embody is complex and changes over time. We will tackle the process of memorializing, the monuments that result, and seek greater insight into the arguments these artifacts make about the past, the present, and our place in the world.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-323 - America's National Parks

The National Parks are some of America's most treasured and spectacular landscapes, but even these wild places are the product of historical forces. In this class, we will explore the history of America's National Parks, and use these spaces to unpack the relationship between Americans, their land, and their history.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-324 - Oral History

Oral history collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews. There are few opportunities for historical research that are more satisfying or more challenging than oral history. In this class, we will learn about oral history methods, techniques, and ethics. We will read, listen to, and watch some of the finest examples of the genre. Then we will go out and add to the world's understanding of its past by conducting oral histories of our own. For their final project in this course, students will work in teams to produce a podcast based on their own interview(s).
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-325 - Museums and History

Many more people learn history from museums than from textbooks. What is it that is so special about encountering the "real thing" in a museum? Why are Dorothy's Ruby Slippers the most visited artifact in the National Museum of American History? Do history museums themselves have an important history? Join us as we investigate the connections between our history, our museums, and the material artifacts that tell historical stories.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-326 - Digital History

Computers and their networks have fundamentally altered the ways that history is both produced and consumed. Sources in digital formats simultaneously present opportunities and challenges that force us to rethink what is possible in history. Doing history in a digital age forces us to engage with the issues and opportunities raised by such as topics as digitization and preservation, text mining, interactive maps, new historic methodologies and narrative forms, computational programming, and digital storytelling. Digital tools, including blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, and many others, help bring history to new audiences in different ways. In this course, we will investigate the landscape of digital history and tackle the exciting task of understanding and creating history in the digital age.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-330 - Deafness and Technology

The deaf community has a long and complicated relationship with technological devices. The deaf community, for instance, was quick to embrace the new technology of moving pictures, and many deaf actors found work in early Hollywood during the silent film era. Most lost their livelihoods when sound was introduced to motion pictures. Deaf people were left out of the communication revolution brought about by the telephone for many years, but now the deaf community is increasingly a wired community, as texting, tweeting, and vlogging makes more communication technologies accessible to deaf users. This course will explore the historical relationship between technology and deafness. It will consider how views of deafness frequently shape technology, that is, if deafness is viewed as a pathological illness, technologies are focused on curing it (e.g., cochlear implants), whereas, if deaf people are viewed as members of linguistic and cultural minority, technologies are harnessed to make it easier for that minority to interact with the majority culture (e.g, relay systems). This course will consider how deaf people have historically used, created, and adopted technologies to their own ends.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-333 - Diversity in the Deaf Community

Students in this course will be introduced to the historical study of diversity in the Deaf community, especially as it relates to issues of race, ethnicity, gender, disability, and sexuality. Students will learn to analyze the implications of such diversity in terms of the social perception of deaf people, the history of the education of deaf people, and the experience of acculturation for and as Deaf people. The course will examine how the process of acculturalization has operated, historically, within the Deaf community. Deaf culture has sought to transcend various differences and to bond members of the Deaf community together, in one, larger Deaf identity. But has this always been achieved? How has the Deaf community handled issues of diversity in different historical moments? Has the history of diversity within the Deaf community been similar to the history of diversity within the hearing community? Or have there been distinctively Deaf ways of diversity in history? This course will invite students to compare and contrast the history of difference and diversity in the deaf and hearing communities, and to explore those historical moments of intersection and interaction as well.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-335 - Women and the Deaf Community

Deaf history, as a field, has often neglected the story of deaf women. Scholar Arlene B. Kelly has recently asked, Where is deaf herstory? This course seeks to correct that gender imbalance in deaf history. We will study deaf women's history. This will include a consideration of deaf-blind women, as well, as women like Helen Keller were often the most famous deaf women of their era. But this course also seeks to look at the role of hearing women in deaf history. Hearing women dominated the field of deaf education in the late nineteenth century. They had a tremendous impact on the lives of deaf children and the events of deaf educational history. Hearing women were also important figures in deaf history as mothers. As mothers of deaf children, hearing women were frequently asked to behave as teachers in the home. Their embrace of this role often led them to endorse oral education, and oppose the sign language. Hearing mothers in this way were pitted against their adult deaf daughters, who frequently went on to learn sign language against their mothers' wishes. The historically complex relationship between women and the deaf community will be explored in this course.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-345 - Environmental Disasters

This class will survey the history environmental disasters (from floods to oil spills) in modern American and global society. Students will study several specific disasters (for example, Hurricane Katrina, the Great Midwestern Floods of the 1990s, Love Canal, and the Haitian Earthquake of 2008) and analyze a series of broader themes that illuminate their meaning, including the economic impact of various disasters, the legal and political ramifications of modern disasters, and the social and cultural meaning of disasters in various societies.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-350 - Terrorism, Intelligence, and War

This course investigates the historical, political, moral, and legal dimensions of terrorism, intelligence, and war. It uses a case-study approach with themes that include just war theory, terrorism in the colonial and post-colonial worlds, domestic terrorism, and mechanisms of intelligence and covert operations.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-351 - The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War continues to loom over American history. In the service of vastly different causes, politicians repeatedly invoke it: some define it as a tragic mistake, others as a noble cause. Many search for “the lessons of Vietnam,” a war that cost more than 58,000 American lives and as many as three million Vietnamese. In this course, we consider the war experiences of both the United States and Vietnam. We begin by highlighting Vietnamese history, culture, nationalism, communism, and independence. After analyzing Vietnam as a colony under the French, we turn our attention to American involvement beginning in the early years of the Cold War and ending with the fall of Saigon. Although we examine military and political history, the course also emphasizes social and cultural perspectives on a war that tore at the fabric of American society and led ultimately to the downfall of two presidents. Last, we look at the war’s enduring legacies in the United States and Vietnam today. Readings and assignments for the course include government documents, memoirs, fiction, film, and secondary literature from both nations.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-365 - Conflict in Modern East Asia

The twentieth century has sometimes been called the Pacific Century, which is ironic since this period of time has been anything but pacific! The twentieth century saw the rise of four great pacific powers; the US, Japan, China and the Soviet Union, and saw the eclipse of several others, including the British and French Empires. Furthermore a major front of the Cold War was played out on the Asian continent, namely the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as the US standoff with Communist China. And of course the Second World War, the greatest concentrated period of human destruction, played out at the midpoint of the twentieth century. This class will analyze these conflicts both as conflicts in and of themselves, but will also look at the backdrop against which these conflicts were played out. Beginning with the subjugation of China in the 19th century, our class will examine the many conflicts that defined this region through the end of the twentieth century.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-369 - Histories of Christianity

The history of Christianity is not simply the history of the religion of the west. Rather, Christian history is a long and complex movement that has profoundly affected Asia, Africa, Europe, and the New World. At various times there were several competing ideologies of Christianity, of which the west's was only a single example. Christianity also has a long history of interacting with other religions, from Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism to Judaism and Islam. This course will trace the development of Christianity paying special attention to how the Christian tradition developed in places such as Africa and Asia. We will, of course, also study Christianity in its western forms, but we will make an effort to dive into the rich tradition of this religion in all its many forms.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-380 - International Business History

This course provides an overview on the history of international business since the late 19th century. We will examine social change over time in how corporations have handled expansion into foreign markets, why corporations decided to – or not to – expand abroad, how they managed their foreign operations, and what contributed to their success or failure abroad. To do so, we will look at a variety of factors including how corporations dealt with corporate communication, local regulations, transfers of knowledge and technology, and how corporate decisions affect communities. We will apply these historical insights to case studies of multinational corporations.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-381 - Technology in the Modern World

Trains, planes, automobiles, phones and computers – modern technologies like these make our daily lives pleasant and convenient. Yet, many people around the globe lack access to these technologies. In this course, we will investigate the emergence of industrial manufacturing processes in late 18th century Britain that allowed for the development of these technologies. We will also examine how new technologies spread to other places in the world, how they shaped colonial relations, and what role they play in today’s developing world. In this course, you will gain a better understanding of how people around the world have shaped their technologies, and how technologies in turn have shaped them.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-390 - Medicine and Public Health in American History

This course introduces students to the social and cultural history of medicine by examining differing concepts of disease, health, and healing throughout American history. Themes include the professionalization of medicine, the role of science in medical research and practice, popular understanding and experience of health and illness, and the role of the state in providing medical care. We will explore how science and medicine defined social categories of difference, including race and gender, and how these categories in turn shaped medical thought and practice. The course format combines lectures, discussions, and films and readings include historical documents and case studies.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-402 - Special Seminar in History

This upper-level small group seminar will focus on a specific theme or topic in history, chosen by the instructor, announced in the subtitle, and developed in the syllabus. All sections of this course are writing intensive. The topics of this course will vary, but the course number will remain the same, so be sure not to repeat the same topic.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-421 - Hands-on History

Get hands-on experience researching, interpreting, and writing history. The class will tackle a common historical theme (announced in the subtitle), then do original historical research on a topic of your choice within the overall theme. Our themes do not just rehash old topics with little new information to uncover. Instead, we focus on relatively unexplored areas of the past, where your research can shed new light on unknown topics. You will learn about history by doing it! All majors are welcome.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-430 - Deaf Spaces

History, and particularly Deaf history within a predominantly hearing world, is the product of a vast network of inter-related spaces, in which more or less well-defined knowledges and cultures are performed. This course will provide students the opportunity to learn skills to identify and describe the different spaces - produced by both Deaf and hearing people - that have contributed to a 'history of the Deaf community'. It will equip students with the ability to not only identify and describe the histories of the Deaf community, but also to critically explore the meta-historical narratives that shape those histories, allowing them to situate those narratives within the wider evolution of social and cultural representation. Deaf Geographies reside at the intersection of Human Geography and Deaf Studies. It considers spatiality, language, citizenship, education, and identity, as well as other themes of interest in new ways by viewing these through the eyes of a community who perform their cultural and social geographies in the visual.
Prerequisite: 2nd - 4th year standing.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-431 - Theory and Methods of Deaf Geographies

The course is designed to give students theoretical and practical exposure to qualitative social science applied research methods in a new area of human geographic and Deaf Studies research: Deaf Geographies. Deaf Geographies reside at the intersection of Human Geography and Deaf Studies. It considers spatiality, language, citizenship, education, and identity, as well as other themes of interest in new ways by viewing these through the eyes of a community who perform their cultural and social geographies in the visual. The focus of the course is an instructor-led research project. Students will gain a grounding in appropriate methodological theory in order to conduct hands-on, primary research that will include proposal writing, data collection, analysis, and dissemination.
Prerequisite: 2nd - 4th year standing.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-439 - Biography as History

This course will look at biography as a form of history. By studying biographies that approach their subjects with various formats and methods of presentation, the class will examine how the craft of biography shapes our contemporary understanding of the historical past. Among the questions to be examined in this course are: how does biography reveal the historical circumstances of the subject’s life to give readers a broader understanding of the historical context of that life? How effectively can contemporary readers explore the past through the prism of one person’s life? Can the history of an era be effectively told through an examination of one person’s life? What are the benefits of the biographical approach to history? What are the drawbacks? What are the benefits of biography as a form of public history? That is, when people can get their history through the Biography Channel, how important is it for public historians to grapple with the impact of biography as a form with a unique grip on the public imagination?
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-450 - Modern Japan in History, Fiction, and Film

This course offers an introduction to modern Japanese history, highlighting social and aesthetic traditions that have formed the foundations for Japanese literature and cinema. It explores how writers and directors have drawn on this heritage to depict historical experiences.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-462 - East-West Encounters

The Age of Discovery, beginning in the fifteenth century and culminating with the advent of European imperialism, is one of the most fascinating, as well as problematic, periods in the history of both Asia and Europe. Too often historians frame the interaction between Asia and Europe in uniquely European terms and present Asia as a passive partner in this process of discovery. In fact, this period presents us with a number of complex issues such as national identity, the nature of European expansion, and the Asian response to European journeys to the East. This course will undertake to re-examine the age of discovery not only from a European point of view, but also from an Asian standpoint. In the process, we will see how many of the issues that we are facing in the region are products of a long and complex relationship between Europe and Asia. Students will also examine the issues that have arisen between the east and the west in the twentieth century and that continue into our own time.
Lecture, Credits 3

HIST-465 - Samurai in Word and Image

One of the most enduring images of premodern Japan in the samurai, replete with sword and armor. This course will seek to examine the role of the samurai in Japanese history, examining popular perceptions in Japanese film, woodblock prints, and texts. We will also use a variety of secondary sources to critically examine some of the portrayals of the samurai and how they stand up to historical reality. Students will be encouraged to participate in extensive discussions as we deal with a great variety of media and try to arrive at an image of the samurai that is historically accurate. And finally, we will examine issues such as feudalism and the warrior code and how those historical concepts relate to the west at about the same time period.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-470 - Science, Tech, and European Imperialism: 1800-1965

Between 1800 and 1945, Western nations dominated approximately three-quarters of the earth’s surface through imperialism. This course examines how industrialization, technological developments, and the emergence of the modern “sciences” facilitated Europe’s conquest and colonization of vast territories overseas. The course opens with a brief overview of the role of biology and science in shaping early imperial encounters (the Columbian Exchange). Students will then consider how 19th-century botany, zoology, acclimatization, cartography, geography, and anthropology became “imperial” sciences that facilitated formal conquest by producing knowledge about distant cultures, “races,” and environments. The Industrial Revolution produced new technological “tools”--steamboats, railroads, and weapons--that facilitated the “Scramble” for territory in the late 19th century. The course will consider how these inventions shaped patterns of conquest and colonial rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Throughout the course, students will interrogate how Europeans’ faith in the superiority of Western technology, scientific knowledge, and medicine shaped the evolution of the European “civilizing mission”-- the cultural and political logic that defined interactions between Europeans and non-Western populations. At the same time, they will evaluate how Africans and Asians experienced living under colonial rule, and in some cases, how they deployed Western technology as weapons of resistance to imperialism.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-480 - Global Information Age

The internet and cell phones seem to have turned us into world citizens of cyberspace. Programmers in Bangalore or Chennay now write software for US companies, and doctors in India or Australia interpret the Cat-Scan or MRI images of US patients overnight. As bestselling author Thomas Friedman argues, “the world is flat,” that is competition for intellectual work is now global. Others have suggested that information technologies have led to global homogenization, with people around the world reading the same news, listening to the same music, and purchasing the same products. In this class, we will investigate the history of information and communication technologies to cast new light on these claims about our present-day technologies. This class is a small seminar which includes a research project.
Lecture 3, Credits 3

HIST-499 - Independent Study

A student may register for an independent study project subject to the approval of the faculty sponsor, student's department, the academic committee of the college of liberal arts and the dean of the college of liberal arts and providing that she or he has a minimum GPA of 2.7 at time of application. An independent study project is not a substitute for a course. It enables the interested student and his or her faculty sponsor to coordinate their efforts on subjects and topics that range beyond the normal sequence of course selection.
Ind Study, Credits 1 - 3